


the accident instead of the ache

by kindclaws



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/M, MAJOR HTTYD3 SPOILERS, because we all found that ending painful, even if it was the right thing, me working out my grief vicariously through Hiccup, read on to feel better!, spans the decade or so between the end of the movie and the epilogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-04 18:33:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17903363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindclaws/pseuds/kindclaws
Summary: It takes ten years for Hiccup to agree to go looking for the edge of the ocean. There's a shadow waiting on the rocks.





	the accident instead of the ache

**Author's Note:**

> title from Yves Olade's [antinous among the reeds.](https://therisingphoenixreview.com/2017/01/13/antinous-among-the-reeds-by-yves-olade/) I highly recommend reading the whole thing and supporting the poet.

 

> _When I was drowning I thought about the /_ _light instead of the water, the accident /_ _instead of the ache..._
> 
> _I knew I couldn’t keep you from the start._
> 
> _- Yves Olade_

 

 

Hiccup doesn't sleep the first night after Toothless leaves. 

He turns the words over in his mouth as he stokes the makeshift forge of New Berk. Left. Toothless left. It makes their parting sound so - cruel. So careless. Like his dragon, his best friend, the mirror of his _soul_ , just got up and _left_ , like he didn't look back, like he wasn't the very last dragon to take off from the cliff into worlds unknown. Like he wasn't staring back at Hiccup until the last minute, checking if he was really okay with this, if it was going to end like this.

Toothless didn't leave, but Hiccup doesn't have a better word for it yet. The tight feeling in his chest, the lump in his throat that hasn't receded in hours, the restlessness in his roaming fingers as he searches through the half-unpacked crates containing Gobber's blacksmithing tools - these signs all point to a grief so all-encompassing he doesn't know if he'll ever be free of it. Maybe there will never be a better word. Maybe that final image of Toothless launching himself off the cliff after his flock will weigh on him until his grave. 

Toothless left. 

Toothless left, and Hiccup feels scraped raw. He keeps his shoulders hunched up to his ears as he hammers away. He keeps his curses quiet when his first attempt at working the metal is too hasty, the makeshift forge not hot enough, the metal cracked and brittle when he tries to shape it. He throws the misshapen lump of metal at the wall of the tent with enough force to tear a hole through it. In the ragged gap left behind, Hiccup sees with a jolt of shock that the sky's gone dark in the time he's spent cloistered away. The stars are out. 

He has a sudden, terrible urge to go chasing them. The grief threatens to overwhelm him all over again when he remembers he's grounded now, that he'll never race through a moonlit sky again. He slams his hands down on the table, knocking off a pair of pliers and some sketches left over from the last prosthetic he made for Toothless. The force of the blow ricochets up his wrists, splintering into his elbows. Hiccup forces himself to breathe through it. Inhale, and exhale again, and again, and still again. Toothless left hours ago, and Hiccup has been breathing since. He can keep going for another breath, and another. 

Like he did when he woke up without a foot, six years and a lifetime ago. He relearned to walk then, even when it hurt so much he didn't think he could make it to the other side of the house alone. He put one foot in front of the other until he was there. One breath after another.

He uncurls his hands, flexing the stiff fingers. Another deep breath, and he makes a hop towards the flap of the tent, one hand bracing himself against the length of the table. He hears footsteps outside, a warrior's tread, just before a slim arm brushes the flap aside. 

Hiccup looks away as Astrid comes in and sets his sorry attempt at metalwork on the table with a _thunk_. 

"Were you waiting outside?" he asks. Hearing his own voice for the first time since - for the first time in a few hours makes him wince. He sounds like he's been crying.

"Was patroling the camp. If I were a few steps faster this thing would have clocked me in the head, so, you know, thanks for that," Astrid says. Hiccup just keeps staring at the lump of metal she's set down. Part of his brain, the dreamer that never rests, is already cataloguing its flaws, coming up with and crossing out ideas for the next attempt. He kind of hates that he can't turn that part of his brain off, not even now. 

"Sorry," Hiccup says. He reaches for the shoddy prosthetic, and Astrid's hand comes down on top of his. 

"Ah," she says, a little awkward as she keeps his hand pinned to the table. "There are more than a few of the villagers asking me to ask you to, and I quote, 'quiet the hells down' in here. You do know everyone's getting ready for bed?"

"Astrid - " Hiccup says, his skin crawling. One breath after another. He breathes until his voice comes back, tries to fight the instinct to flee, to hunch his shoulders up like he's fifteen and useless again. "I need this," he says, his voice small. He finally takes a chance and meets Astrid's eyes, and her gaze is so soft and understanding that he feels raw all over again. "I can't - I feel - "

There aren't words for this, either, what feels like a hole in his chest. The prickle on the back of his neck, his skin crawling. He's never felt more exposed, more vulnerable in his entire life.

"I thought you always had like three backups on hand?" Astrid hazards. 

"Don't remember where I packed them," Hiccup says. He turns his hand over, palm up, and exhales as Astrid's fingers curl around his. "I need to make this tonight," he says eventually. "I can't - Toothless is gone, and I feel - what if there's danger - Grimmel's men could come back. I need to feel - "

"Safe?" Astrid says, and there it is. Astrid always knows where to hit. He nods.

"I need my leg," he says. "I need to feel like I'm not completely useless, and - and - " _vulnerable and alone and so very trapped in one place_.

"Okay," Astrid says. "Where do we start?"

Hiccup breathes. He squeezes her hand. 

"The forge isn't hot enough. Can you grab more firewood from the pile outside?"

"Gotcha," Astrid says. The flap of the tent swishes after her, and Hiccup watches it settle in place and waits for the wave of grief to return. He can hear her outside, the hollow _thunk_ of wood as she piles it into her arms, her grunt as she stands and one of the logs must fall out of her grip.

"You can make two trips, you know!" Hiccup calls out, loud enough that she can hear and curse in response. The familiarity of their banter makes the tightness in his chest ease for a moment. It's not quite so bad as Astrid comes back in, her face hidden behind the armful of firewood. It's easier to focus on his work with her here. She ties her hair back with a spare leather thong and grabs his tools as he needs them - sometimes before he says which.

Between the two of them they hammer out a rough prosthetic. It'll be good enough, Hiccup thinks, to carry him around camp for the next few days as they build New Berk, until he can carve out some time to make a better one, or figures out wherever the old backups got packed. Hiccup is halfway through hammering out the notch where the prosthetic should click into Toothless' harness when he realizes. 

He drops the hammer. If he had a foot there, it would have fallen on his toes. 

"Hiccup?" Astrid says. 

"The notch," he says helplessly. He hears her sigh and then her arms come around his waist, her head settling between his shoulderblades. Even with the forge's warmth her weight along his back feels comforting. One breath after another. "It's good enough," he forces himself to say, and he drops the prosthetic into a waiting vat of water. 

A few minutes later he buckles his stump into it and follows Astrid out into the cool night. The fresh air hits like a punch to the face after so long spent by the forge's stuffy heat. Hiccup looks up at the vast swath of stars twinkling between the treetops and his vision swims. He's still too restless to sleep, and he doesn't want Astrid to carry him to bed. She's definitely still capable of it, even with the sorry excuse for muscle he's put on. 

On a night like this, he'd normally suggest they go flying, but - 

Astrid is watching him.

"Can we go to the cliff?" he asks, and she just nods. They make their way there wordlessly, her hand tight and solid around his the whole time. They sit near the edge, where the swaying grasses give way to crumbling stone, and they look up at the sky for a very long time. The night's dew has long since crept into Hiccup's pants and chilled his bones before Astrid speaks. 

"We could build our house here," she says. "It's a little far from where we'll probably put the market square, but your house on Berk was a bit of a trek too, and we'll have to get used to climbing up and down anyway."

"That sure is an idea," Hiccup says, and he tries to laugh. Astrid squints at him. 

"You don't like it," she says. He shrugs awkwardly. 

"This is... where we said goodbye," he says. "I think I won't be the only one who wants to be able to remember it. It wouldn't be fair of us to hog the view, right?"

"Fair enough," Astrid says. Hiccup lifts his arm up, and Astrid shuffles closer, tugging her hair out of the way as he tightens his arm around her shoulders. "Are you worried we didn't make the right choice?"

"Yes," Hiccup says. "Yes - _so_ _much_. What if his tail malfunctions? Or something happens? How will we know? They've gone where I can't follow."

"I know," Astrid says, and finally, a tear creeps down the curve of her cheek before she brushes it away roughly with the back of her hand. Seeing her cry too releases some of the tight feeling in his chest. He pulls her closer, pressing his face into her hair, smelling soap and smoke, and underneath all that Astrid's own scent. 

"Tell me about what we'll build here," he says hoarsely. "What you want New Berk to be."

And they let their dreams carry them to dawn, their eyes tired but shining with guarded hope for the future.

 

 

 

 

 

The construction of New Berk demands most of Hiccup's time and attention for the months leading up to winter. Berkians have seven generations of experience at rebuilding running through their veins - with all the practice they got back when attacking dragons would regularly burn down half the village in a raid, they'd _better_ be good at rebuilding. 

The first week, especially, is a chaotic mess. Hiccup devotes himself to petty territorial disputes - two families with a competitive streak fighting over the same coveted plot of land at the edge of the treeline, Gothi wanting to build her house where Hiccup wants to put the fisheries - and he's glad to let Astrid take the bulk of the other work, like assigning some crews to build the boats they didn't bring with them in their rushed departure from Berk, and writing missives for the traders they'll want to alert of their new location. 

Astrid wakes at dawn each day, and Hiccup follows her only a few minutes later, always missing her warmth from their pile of furs. The days are fully occupied by the demands of the village, so Hiccup only sees her when she elbows her way past other villagers with a pile of ideas for him to weigh in on, or at the very end of the day, when they stumble back to their tent long after sundown. Most nights they're too tired to even talk. Astrid brushes her hair and braids it for bed, and Hiccup watches the firelight glint off her blonde head until his eyelids drop. Some nights he's awake long enough to feel the press of her lips against his cheek or temple before she settles in next to him. Some nights the long day gets to him first.

In the six years since... since dragons and Vikings learned to get along, the Berkians have developed an entirely new way of life. The space the dragons have carved out in that new life isn't fully evident until their absence, until Hiccup estimates that building a new Great Hall will take a few days with the gronkles helping them find a good spot for a quarry, before he remembers there aren't any left. Astrid writes and seals a dozen letters to traders and tribes they keep in touch with before she remembers Terror-mail is over. Hiccup dedicates two days to designing a complex pulley system to raise and lower boats down the cliff to the ocean below, and another four days revising his plans over and over until he's got something that humans can realistically build on their own. It takes the scouts weeks to map the island out in detail that Hiccup could have done in two hours from Toothless' back. 

He finds himself back on the edge of the cliff, peering through the blanket of fog shrouding the ocean from view as though wishing hard enough will part the clouds and show him where the water gives way to the hole to the hidden world. From this height and with the wind ruffling his hair around his face like playful ghostly hands, he could almost pretend he's flying again, the ocean laid about underneath him like a canvas, the rolling waves so small they could be scribbles. _Gods_ , he wants to be flying again so keenly it aches. He misses the silence, the solitude, the solid warmth of Toothless' flank under his thighs.

Tuffnut sings a dirty shanty under his breath as he approaches, the shuffle of his feet knocking loose pebbles down the slope of the grassy cliff. Hiccup doesn't say anything as his friend comes to a stop at his side, though he thinks he'd rather be alone. Tuffnut has braided his hair back under his chin since the last battle, though an unfortunate sword slice has left the fake beard looking even less convincing than before. He strokes it as though deep in thought as he stares out at the horizon. Hiccup sighs and prepares himself for either a deeply insensitive remark, or unexpected wisdom disguised as absurdity. You really never know with the twins.

"You know," Tuffnut says. "All this cheif-ing around, it can't be good for your love life."

Ah. Deeply insensitive it is, after all. 

"Tuffnut," Hiccup says tiredly. "I'm really not in the mood - "

" _Exactly_!" Tuffnut says. "At last, we agree. The problem seems obvious to me. You, my friend, are so worried you made the wrong choice, that you can't focus on our quest to have Astrid marry you."

" _Our_ quest?" Hiccup asks, but Tuffnut keeps talking over him, one finger pompously pointed up at the sky, his other arm tucked behind his back.

"You're too stuck on the past to embrace the future!"

...There might be some wisdom hidden there. 

"Can we talk about this another time?" Hiccup asks, rubbing at his forehead. "As in, maybe two years from now? Or twenty?"

Tuffnut slings an arm around Hiccup's shoulders and gives him a 'friendly' punch to the gut that's still hard enough to knock most of the air out of his lungs. Typical Viking gestures of friendship. Hiccup rolls his eyes, but doesn't pull away.

"Look. Hiccup, my guy, my dude, my chief," Tuffnut says. "Have you considered taking a boat and just... rowing out there? Knock knock on the hidden world, have some afternoon tea with your dragon-in-law, make sure she's treating Toothless right, and nip right back to New Berk before anyone notices you're gone?"

"Someone would definitely notice," Hiccup says dryly. "I can't even take five minutes to mope on my own before someone decides to come talk at me." If Tuffnut realizes he's being addressed, he certainly doesn't show it.

"I'll cover for you," Tuffnut says, patting him on the back.

"I - I can't," Hiccup says, looking down at the swaying grasses at their feet. "Even if we had the boats to spare, or knew how to find the entrance by boat - which we don't - I just - "

"And why the Thor not, my stubborn friend?" Tuffnut asks, leaning close enough that the spikes on his shoulder pauldrons come uncomfortably close to Hiccup's neck. 

Hiccup says nothing for a long time. 

"He'd come back," he mumbles eventually. "If he wanted to, he'd come back. Wouldn't he? Wouldn't they all?"

"I guess," Tuffnut says. "Belch definitely misses me. He probably just hasn't visited yet because Barf is so glad to be rid of Ruffnut, which is _totally_ understandable. And Hookfang - ah, good ol' Hooky's probably roasting in a steam bath and has forgotten all about Snotlout already."

Tuffnut goes on for a while, imagining retirement scenarios for each of the dragons, eventually stomping off to deliver a soliloquy to the wind whistling along the cliff. Hiccup sneaks off when he's distracted, not quite willing to wait around until Tuffnut gets to Toothless. 

He wants Toothless to be happy, he always has. It's the only thing that would make this goodbye worthwhile. But he's not sure if he's ready to _hear_ about it, if he'll be okay imagining Toothless so easily moving on when Hiccup's still - well, he's not miserable, but he's... He misses the wind in his face. He misses the deep dives and the sharp twists around seastacks. He misses skimming a hand along the surface of the water as Toothless glides just above it. He feels like half of himself. He misses his best friend, and he _wants_ Toothless to be happy, but something sits in his stomach like curdled sheep milk. Not jealousy, but maybe something close to it. 

The only thing worse than hearing Tuffnut muse about Toothless' happiness would be finding out that he's miserable instead.

 

 

 

 

 

Astrid agrees to marry him the second year of New Berk's founding, the evening that the first snowflakes of winter start to come down in fairytale clumps, dampening the porch and the eaves. 

Perhaps it's not entirely accurate to say she agrees. That implies that Hiccup is making an active effort to convince her, and he's not. Even Tuffnut's gotten distracted with other pursuits - there's always work to be done, and the furthest reaches of the island to explore, and twin sisters to heckle. It's more accurate to say that the betrothal between Hiccup and Astrid continues to exist, like some nebulous, faraway promise, and Hiccup doesn't think of it much except when he drags an awed finger down the curve of Astrid's sleeping face and wonders if maybe - 

But he doesn't usually let himself go that far.

On the evening of that year's first snowfall, he and Valka are in the kitchen attempting to teach each other how to cook. Hiccup is standing over the cookfire, stirring the dubious-looking 'stew' with a grimace, when Astrid kicks the door in and tracks snow all over the floor. Hiccup abandons the stirring spoon and runs to close the door as the wind carries a sprinkling of snowflakes in after her. Astrid dumps the basket she's carried in on the rocking chair and grabs Hiccup's face.

"Wha - "

He doesn't get a chance to ask what's gotten into her, why she's smiling so widely, before she plants a deep, wet kiss on his mouth. 

"We should get married," she says breathlessly after pulling away, before Hiccup's had time to put his wits back in order. The sound of a pot clattering to the floor makes both of them jump apart like they're misbehaving teenagers trying to sneak around Stoick again. Valka stands at the foot of the cellar, her face gone rather pink in the cheeks. 

"I'll just - I'll be going," she says, stepping around the pot she's dropped and patting Hiccup's shoulder quickly on her way to the cloak that hangs by the door. "I don't need to be here for this conversation."

Astrid slaps a hand over her face and doesn't look up until well after the door's shut behind Hiccup's mother. 

"So uh," Hiccup begins. "I thought - "

"I want this," Astrid says. "With you. I know I said for a long time that it wasn't the right time yet."

"The impending doom and gloom of winter is the right time then?" Hiccup says, gesturing in the vague direction of the swirling snow out the window. 

"Well," Astrid says, looking at him from under her eyelashes - and that really shouldn't get to him anymore, after years of seeing her throw axes at people, he really should know better - "You know how Vikings love an excuse to feast in the middle of winter."

"Yes," Hiccup says, though she hasn't asked any question aloud. "Yeah, let's do it."

 

 

 

 

 

Gothi kicks him out of the house when their first child starts to come a week before they were expecting them. Hiccup thinks this is completely unnecessary - he would have been perfectly capable of remaining calm and out of everyone's way while they prepare for the baby's birth - and even Valka tries to vouch for him, reminding Gothi that Stoick practically threw a fit during her childbirth, and Gothi let _him_ stay, but Hiccup finds himself thoroughly outvoted. 

He knows he could go to the Ingerman's and Fishlegs would talk his ear off until Astrid's delivered the baby, but Hiccup's not quite willing to endure what could be several hours of comparisons drawn between Fishlegs' gronkle hatchlings and human babies.

He goes to the cliff instead, even though spring hasn't quite reached New Berk and the swaying grasses on his favourite thinking spot - Astrid calls it the sulking spot - are yellow and shriveled wherever the snow has melted in patches. It's too wet to sit, so he stands, even when the old, familiar ache in his amputated leg returns. The ocean is a dark, ominous blue-gray today, no sunlight breaking through the overcast clouds to brighten it.

Hiccup had nightmares of this cliff, a few months after the dragons left, after life in New Berk had calmed down enough that he was no longer exhausted enough by the daily chaos to slip straight into a dreamless sleep. It's not enough that he can't fly again in real life. He'd close his eyes and find himself falling through the air again, over and over, trapped in the freefall with Grimmel's greedy hands tearing at his flightsuit, ripping his wings away. Sometimes in the dream Grimmel isn't there, and Hiccup hardly notices his absence. In dreams, like in the memory, he is barely paying attention to the man, to his own impeding death. In dreams, like in the memory, he is staring up and pleading with any listening gods that the light fury catches Toothless in time. 

In the good dreams he sees them land on the grassy cliff in a tumble of black and white limbs, and he smiles even as he falls to his death. In the bad dreams, the light fury isn't fast enough, or doesn't wake up, or Hiccup doesn't get the collar off in time, or he plummets too quickly and never gets to see Toothless carried to safety. 

The nightmares came back after Astrid realized she was pregnant. Hiccup told Gothi about them, thinking if anyone could help him interpret them, it would be her. But she only knocked her staff against Hiccup's forehead and stared meaningfully at Astrid's belly, like _babies just are harbingers of doom and destruction, gods Hiccup, everyone knows that, why don't you?_

He stares out at the ocean, lost in thought, until footsteps crunch in the snow once again. He turns and finds Valka approaching, a bundle of pale cloth in her arms. 

"Hiccup," his mother says in a sing-song voice. "Won't you come meet my granddaughter?"

"A girl?" he asks, half-stumbling in his haste. "We have a girl?"

"Come and see," Valka says with a laugh, and Hiccup pulls the blankets aside to reveal a squished pink face with a tuft of copper hair and a mouth that feels like it takes up half her face, especially when it opens and she starts wailing. Valka trails an affectionate finger through the wispy curls of hair. "Her hair might darken as she ages, of course, but now... I think she takes after Stoick."

Hiccup swallows down the lump in his throat. 

"Aye," he says awkwardly, and has to force himself to remember to breathe when Valka passes his child - his child! - into his arms. One breath after another. He rests her head in the crook of his elbow and marvels at how small her nose is, how fiercely dedicated she already is to the ancient and hallowed Viking art of hollering at the top of your lungs. He looks up and his eyes trace Valka's smile, the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes that are still more pronounced with her delight. "Astrid is...?" he asks. 

"Fine," Valka soothes him. "She was asleep when I left, but she took the liberty of naming your girl, since you weren't there to argue."

"Now, I - I wanted to be there!" Hiccup starts to argue. "Gothi - "

But his mother only laughs harder and kisses his hair. Hiccup runs out of words again, at the gesture, at the easy love he missed from Valka for so many years. Tears sting the corners of his eyes, and when he turns his head towards the cliff and the hidden world beyond, the wind steals them away. 

"I wish..." he says, his voice trailing off. Valka hugs him with one arm and rests her cheek against his hair. She hums a tuneless melody, hardly audible over his daughter's wailing, and they look out over a rolling gray ocean for a while more. If Hiccup closes his eyes he can almost imagine everyone missing. His father's warmth at his back, his booming voice exclaiming over his granddaughter's shared hair and future lung capacity. Toothless would give that low warble of pleased curiosity, would press his belly low to the ground and slink closer, his pupils gone wide and round in his eyes. Stormfly would be turning her head this way and that, to look at her rider's offspring with both eyes, cawing in delight. 

He opens his eyes and lets go of the fantasy. They're still gone, but his heart feels lighter, fuller. He breathes in the scent of salt and spring and leans into his mother's side. 

 

 

 

 

 

"There were dragons, when I was a boy," Hiccup tells his children, and they both exclaim in appropriate fear and delight. Zephyr draws the blankets up to her chin, and Nuffink peeks out at Hiccup from between the fingers hiding his face. From her seat by the fire, Astrid snorts. Hiccup side-eyes her. 

"You've told the story a hundred times," Astrid says, though the smile teasing her lips tells him she's not too serious. "And every time, they act like it's the first."

"I want it again!" Zephyr insists, and Nuffink pipes up only seconds later, at the age where he's Zephyr's shadow in everything but form.

"Some say they crawled back into the sea, leaving not a bone nor a fang for men to remember them by..." Hiccup continues indulgently.

Later, when they've fallen asleep, Hiccup wraps his arms around Astrid and sways against her. Under his breath he sings a song he's only heard a handful of times since his mother and father danced to it in an icy cave, in a moment of peace.

"I've no need for mighty deeds," Astrid sings under her breath, "when I feel your arms around me..."

"That's good," Hiccup says, burying his nose in the crook of her neck, where the hairs that have escaped her bun tickle his nose. "I think I'm all out of mighty deeds."

"You could always go help Fishlegs change dirty diapers," Astrid says, and Hiccup buries her face further in the inviting curve of her shoulder and groans. She shushes him before he can wake their children. 

"Let's go to sleep," Hiccup says, slipping a finger into her belt and tugging gently in the direction of their bedroom. Astrid bats him away long enough for them to bank the fire for the night, and he follows her heels patiently as she lights a single candle and holds it up for them as they step lightly on the staircase so as to not make the aging wood creak. 

In the candlelight her hair flickers with a familiar golden sheen. Hiccup rests his prosthetic against the foot of the bed and shuffles under the blankets as Astrid sits at the desk. He watches her quick, clever fingers undo the twists holding her hair up, watches it tumble down her back in a cascade of pale gold. It's not until his eyelids start to droop that he realizes she's brushing it much slower than she usually does. 

"Astrid?" he mumbles, one hand snaking out from under the blankets to reach across her empty pillow.

"Do you - " she begins, and her voice breaks off with a crack. The sound of her hairbrush set down against the desk seems to echo through the room. Hiccup sits up, his sleepiness dissipated like smoke.

"Astrid?" he asks, more intent.

"I miss them," she says. "I feel guilty for bringing it up when we've been doing so well, but - "

Her shoulders shudder as she draws a deep breath in. Hiccup slips out of the bed and leans against the dresser and the desk in turn, hopping to make his way to her. He wraps his arms around her shoulders and leans down, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. 

"I never stop," Hiccup admits. "I felt guilty saying anything too, especially when everyone else..."

"Has moved on," Astrid finishes wistfully. "I wish we could have had more time. I wish Zephyr and Nuffink knew what its like to fly. I don't miss the ugly parts of it, the dragon trappers, the ones we couldn't save. I'm glad they don't have to see that, but..."

"I know," Hiccup says, screwing his eyes tightly shut so he doesn't start to cry. The grief has never really gone away. Hiccup thinks he will carry everyone he misses with him his whole life. He's not the kind of person who knows how to let go or love by halves. 

"Honestly, I spent the first two years waiting for you to climb into a boat and sail after them," Astrid admits. "I don't know why you didn't."

"Wanted him to be happy," Hiccup mumbles into her hair. He wanted Toothless to be happy, wanted himself to be happy, was terrified of what he'd do if it wasn't the case. He didn't want to have made the wrong decision. There's an even darker, even more frightened part of him that is afraid they never made it to the hidden world. They never came back, after all, not even to visit. Hiccup doesn't know if something happened along the way, if they couldn't find it, if they _did_ find it and forgot all about the world above the ocean. Forgot all about them.

Astrid's fingers skim along the undersides of his arms. 

"Hiccup," she says, in a voice that means she's made a decision. "Hiccup, I think I need to go looking for the entrance. You don't - if you can't - I can go alone. I just need to see if Stormfly - if my girl's all right."

"I'll come," Hiccup says, even as part of him recoils at the idea, at the _knowing_ , the answers they might find. Like waving your hand at the rainbow formed in the mist of spraying water, and taking the magic away. Astrid breathes out shakily.

"Okay," she says, twisting around in the chair so she can pepper relieved kisses along his bearded jaw.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They don't tell the children what they're looking for, don't want to get their hopes up. It turns out to be a good decision, considering that they return from the first two trips empty-handed, with no more idea of where the entrance could be than they had when they started. 

Hiccup can't bring himself to consider the trips a waste, though, not when Zephyr and Nuffink have such fun turning the heavy ship's wheel together, or standing at the boat's prow and pretending to be pirates. 

He agrees to a third voyage easily. That morning dawns bright and clear, some scattered clouds throughout the sky pale and lazy against an otherwise uninterrupted stretch as blue as Astrid's eyes. Hiccup breathes in the scent of salt and the warmth of sunlight on his face and shares an indulgent smile with Astrid as the wind carries the laughter of their children away. 

Actually hearing the roar of falling water over the sound of waves lapping against the hull is unexpected. A coil of unease grows in Hiccup's stomach as they angle the ship's prow towards it. Even their children fall silent, noticing the shift in their parents' moods. They're quiet as he and Astrid heave the anchor over the side of the boat and feel the chain jerk as the anchor catches somewhere in the murky depths below them. Hiccup exchanges a look with Astrid before pulling the spyglass out of his pocket and stepping up to the prow. 

He holds his breath as he peers through the spyglass, as the fog hanging over the waterfall parts like a curtain drawn aside by ghostly hands. There's a shadow on the rocks. As he watches, the boat drifts further, creaking as it pulls on the anchor's chain. The fog lifts, and now he can see a pale, shimmering smudge beside the shadow. 

The shadow lifts his head, and Toothless peels off from the rocks like the graceful predator he is, still sleek and beautiful after all these years. There are three small heads peeking out at the boat from behind the light fury's tale, and something in Hiccup's chest loosens to see that Toothless has children now, like him. 

He's smiling widely as Toothless glides over the water, wings held in close along his sides, and alights on the curved prow with narrowed eyes and a growl. 

"Toothless!" Hiccup cries out, stepping forward even as his children shriek in fear and run to Astrid. "Toothless, bud, it's me!"

There's no recognition in the narrowed green eyes peering down at him. Toothless slinks down the prow, the boat tilting dangerously with his shifting weight. For a heartbeat, it's Hiccup's worst nightmare. There is a sound in his ears like the rushing wind of a freefall. His stomach lurches to see his best friend looking at him like a stranger - no, worse, a threat to his family. 

Hiccup reaches out. It's what he does best; reaching first, and hoping someone reaches back. When something flickers in Toothless' eyes, when he hears that happy warble again and feels smooth black scales under the callouses of his palms, Hiccup releases a breath that he has been holding in for ten years. The wound has healed. He is remade anew again. He is laughing again, a boy of fifteen again, the years and battles stripped away as he beckons to his children to come meet his best friend, his mirror.

And he knows they'll have to say goodbye again, after this, but it won't be forever.

 

 

 

                                         _ **fin.**_

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if this is in character, if it's any good, but I tried to write the fic I needed to read when I came out of the theatre crying last night. It was fun enough that I might do some RTTE-era stuff after I, uh, recover emotionally. The ending is abrupt because I forgot the canon dialogue in the epilogue. :/
> 
> The dragon at the end is a scribble of Smaug from the Hobbit. I had an image of it in my head, and for some reason I thought it was one of Hiccup's drawings from the books? I'm p sure there were drawings in the books. I don't know, I read them in fourth grade.
> 
> Comments always appreciated! Alternatively, find me on tumblr as [kindclaws.](http://kindclaws.tumblr.com/)


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